baths, paths, moths, myths, houses etc.
<<Because, if you are prescribing pronunciation, you usually only prescribe the phonemes, not all the details (unless you're trying to eliminate an accent, which is rare). If you are describing pronunciation, you are often doing so to illustrate deviations from the norm, in which case mere phonemic transcription is insufficient.>>
No, Mxsmanic, the issue of prescriptivism vs. descriptivism has nothing to do with phonemic and phonetic levels in phonetic transcription. As I said before, if you're prescribing a pronunciation you could theoretically use both the phonemic level and phonetic level to prescribe your preferred pronunciation while by the same token a descriptivist would use the phonemic level and phonetic levels to describe a certain pronunciation.
This is absolutely unrelated to the prescriptivism/descriptivism issue.
Mxsmanic,
Where did you get the idea that it had to do with prescriptivism? This is somewhat comical, because as Kirk said, linguists don't believe in prescriptivism.
<<Where did you get the idea that it had to do with prescriptivism? This is somewhat comical, because as Kirk said, linguists don't believe in prescriptivism.>>
Well, and regardless of anyone's views on prescriptivism and descriptivism, the issue of phonemics and phonetics is just not related whatsoever. As I said before, whether someone is describing or prescribing a pronunciation both phonemic and phonetic levels of transcription may be used to explain said pronunciation.
I said nothing about prescriptivism, I spoke only of prescriptive use of transcription. Prescription is when you tell someone how to do something; description is when you provide information on how they are already doing it. Prescriptivism, on the other hand, seems to be a system of religious belief among certain linguists. But I leave them to their crusades, which are irrelevant to ESL teaching.
<<But I leave them to their crusades>>
Not when you butt in and say something which is linguistically inaccurate. That's hardly "leaving them." But, ok.
<<which are irrelevant to ESL teaching.>>
Yes, yes, always ESL teaching with you...
The slogan of the site is "Learn English effectively." What were you expecting?
<<The slogan of the site is "Learn English effectively." What were you expecting?>>
Below the English forum title it also says "Discuss learning English and the English language" which implies that any topic about the English language (so, even those not necessarily directly related to learning it) is fair game. That being said, even some of the more obscure/technical comments and descriptions of English as applied to various dialects/sociolects can be relevant to some of the very advanced English learners that we have on this site (even if that wasn't the original intent of the post).
Keep in mind that when someone is, for example, describing a specific phonological or grammatical process that occurs in their native dialect of English on this forum, they may or may not be doing it for the explicit benefit of English learners but are usually welcoming comments from anyone who would like to participate in the discussion, be they a native speaker or not.
Thus, just because something is a seemingly obscure/technical comment doesn't mean it's irrelevant to this site and doesn't mean it can be proclaimed by you as an invalid topic because it's "irrelevant to (most) ESL students." Sure, it may not be something that needs to be taught in most ESL classes (and no one will argue with that) but that doesn't mean it's not a perfectly valid topic within the scope of this forum.
Anyway, back to the original topic of this thread, earlier tonight I went out with a friend for coffee (at a Starbucks) and my friend commented to me on how they had "booths" when we got there. When I first heard it I honestly thought she had said "booze" because she had used voiced [Dz] for "booths" instead of [Ts] which I expect. I quickly figured out from context that she meant "booths" but it's interesting that my initial reaction to hearing an unexpected voiced sound there was that it was another word entirely. Anyway, I don't know if it's relevant to this particular example but she's not originally from California (she's from Minnesota) and moved here in her high school years. Accordingly, she sometimes has pronunciations which are not what I expect to hear because they're features of Northern Midwestern English.